Americans love their independence, a nation of pioneers living out from under the eye of government,

except for all the government.

As such, unlike many other countries, Americans don't have a national ID card, and even the idea of creating one is a political hot topic every election cycle.

The results are always the same. We don't need no ID card.

But, suspiciously, U., US citizens do already have this,

a card with a unique number that many places will ask for to prove who you are. This is the

Social Security card and number, and it has become a quasi-ID-stroke unique password to identify

citizens, though that was never its intended use. For Americans, keeping this number

secret is super important, because it's the key to the government and banks identifying

you as you, and losing control of it is the worst kind of identity theft that can happen.

So how did Americans end up with a national ID number that isn't one and a card terribly

unfit to identify.

It all started in the Great Depression of long, long ago, when the government created the Social Security program, a kind of mandatory pension.

Citizens would be required to pay in during their working lives and withdraw in their retirement.

The idea being that even if past you didn't save for the sunset years of future you, the eventually old current you would still have something to live on.

Now, if you want to think of Social Security as a benefit the government provides or as a bank account that's yours is controversial,

but either way, this number was created to track what you put in and what you take out.

Now, because this was just one government program

related only to your working life, you only needed to apply for a Social Security card

when you actually started working. But over time, that changed, and the younger you are,

the more likely you've had one from the moment of your birth, despite babies' worthlessness

as child laborers. So why? Well, it goes back to Americans having no national identity card with a national number,

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